by Shayla Asselin
Give us this day our daily bread.
Matthew 6:11
Today I want to talk about prayer. Now, I know we know there is power in prayer. We know it helps build and maintain our relationship with Christ. We even know the necessity of prayer in our walk with God. So why am I writing about it?
Well, let me share a little backstory. A couple of weeks ago, I heard a sermon that Bro. Jon Brock preached at Bible Holiness Church’s campmeeting called “A Daily Dose.”.
In that sermon, he told a story about how years ago his dad had passed out sticky notes to his entire congregation and asked them to write how long they had prayed that week on their notes. He then collected them all. His dad started preaching on prayer and as the weeks went on, those numbers went up. Bro. Jon Brock recalled the mighty revival their church experienced in the following weeks. He said, “They didn’t have nightly service, but they were having daily prayer meetings. If the church experiences a revival, it’s not going to be a red hot revival. Or a red hot campmeeting. Or a red hot youth camp. It’s going to be a red hot prayer closet.”
Sometimes I feel bad for the evangelists, youth camp, and camp meeting preachers. We expect them to come set our churches ablaze and light a fire in our youth groups. But the problem is we’re asking them to start a fire that we won’t take the time to stoke. So by the time they’ve made it home, that fire is barely an ember.
Every move of God we experience during nightly meetings, camp-meetings, and youth camps are needed but experiencing only three and four encounters with God each year is living so far below our privileges. God is not impressed by our “ability” to survive a week without him. Or our “ability” to survive from revival to revival or campmeeting to campmeeting. In the Old Testament, the Israelites tried to store manna but it started growing worms and began to stink. Like the Israelites, we try to survive the week with what we get on Sundays. But it’s hard for a weekly Christian to fight a daily devil.
When Christ died, and the veil was torn, we were granted access to the very throneroom of God and we are afforded this opportunity every day of our lives.
How many harmless, innocent things in our life have we made sin simply because we have placed them above Christ? I encourage you to make room in your life for God. I know with the holiday season fast approaching, life gets crazier and busier, but please make your relationship with Christ a priority.
My challenge for you today is to think about how much time you spent in prayer this week. If the answer is not what you would like it to be, set aside some time for prayer. For me, I find it’s easier to have a prayer list that I can read over as I talk with God. I’ve linked a template below that might help you get started.
I leave you with one final question: Can you imagine what our homes and churches would be like if we became an army of prayer warriors?
